Solo Leveling is one of the biggest and most popular anime based on a South Korean Manhwa. In 2024, it was officially animated by Aniplex and A-1 Pictures in Japan, and from there onwards, it exploded in terms of popularity. It goes without saying that Solo Leveling features some of the biggest and most exciting battles that we have seen in all of anime, and that as the story continues, it is only going to get even better.
That said, the series isn't without its flaws. Chugong, the creator of Solo Leveling, has admitted to quite a few flaws in his story himself, including with the main character Jinwoo. On August 27, 2026, Solo Leveling marked the release of “The Art of Solo Leveling,” a new art book, which featured quite a lot of comments by Chugong himself. Some of these comments go on to confirm what the author believes to be the biggest flaw of his main character, Sung Jinwoo.
Solo Leveling creator Chugong made Sung Jinwoo into the perfect battle protagonist. Jinwoo is incredibly calm and composed and has an aura of invincibility around him, which makes him an incredibly well-liked character. Characters such as Jinwoo, however, often tend to fall flat because of this invincible aura if they are not developed properly. For this reason, Chugong wanted to add an internal battle tackling various complexities within Jinwoo when he gained the power of the System. He was essentially being primed as a vessel for Ashborn, whom Chugong himself states is akin to a War Machine. As such, Ashborn was slowly being imprinted upon Jinwoo and making him colder by the second.
Initially, Chugong intended for there to be an internal struggle within Jinwoo, where each side would fight for control. Chugong's original goal was for these two identities to fuse together and eventually lead to the creation of the true form of Sung Jinwoo. Unfortunately, he was not able to pull that off in his original story, and that is something that he deeply regrets and believes is the biggest flaw of Sung Jinwoo. Here is what Chugong had to say about the development of Sung Jinwoo as a character in The Art of Solo Leveling, and why he had a fatal flaw that he was never able to properly address in the story:
"The mind of a war machine that had spent an immeasurable amount of time fighting enemies became intertwined with the mind of an ordinary human, so I thought it was only natural that he would change. He became cold and composed, even reaching the point where he enjoyed the thrill of confronting powerful enemies. Amid that intense tug-of-war between his inhumanity and humanity, I wanted to depict him gradually reclaiming his human side, ultimately culminating in a scene where the two minds assimilated into a single being. Because I failed to portray that process and its outcome convincingly, I think many readers came away believing that 'his personality simply changed because he became stronger.”
Solo Leveling's creator, Chugong, makes it quite clear that his original idea was to make Jinwoo an incredibly strong character with a hint of ruthlessness about him, but also one who values his humanity above all. This is well reflected in the original story, as Jinwoo, despite having won the battle against Antares, eventually goes back using the Cup of Reincarnation to avoid casualties. Chugong quite clearly showed Jinwoo's human side in the original web novel, which was also well reflected in the manhwa. However, a lack of internal struggle and character development for Sung Jinwoo meant that his humanity ultimately came out of nowhere. The series consistently focused on Sung Jinwoo's increasingly cold personality, but this plot point was never taken anywhere.
Quite clearly, Chugong intended to do a lot more with it, but in the end, he either ran out of time or the resources to be able to pull that off. Regardless, Jinwoo's descent into darkness at times and rise to immense power as a war machine was incredible for fans to see. After receiving the Black Heart from Ashborn directly and gaining tremendous powers, Jinwoo became the undisputed strongest in his own world, and to this day, fans absolutely relish the battles that he gave us over the years.
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